Warc Best Practice

The Warc Best Practice series provides detailed advice on how to complete a range of tasks. Each paper outlines essential elements to consider to achieve your goal, highlights successful strategies and suggests further reading.

This article sets out some tips and guidelines for using radio as part of the media mix, a resilient media with distinct benefits. View Summary

This article sets out some tips and guidelines for using radio as part of the media mix, a resilient media with distinct benefits.

Radio has several key benefits, including mass reach, targeting by particular audience or time of the day and topicality, as well as having creative flexibility and a lower entry cost than other media.

Sponsorship provides a great opportunity for brands as radio stations and presenters command high levels of loyalty.

Making good radio ads is hard, and this has been compounded by agencies that often leave radio to last in during creative development.

Looking ahead, growing digital audiences are likely to attract the attention of large tech companies and subsequently drive up audience measurement standards.

2

Media Planning Toolkit: Planning newsbrands

Includes video content

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Tony Regan, Warc Best Practice, February 2015, pp. 14-16

This article sets out some key considerations for planning for newsbrands and gives advice for marketers wanting to make the most of this changing media. View Summary

This article sets out some key considerations for planning for newsbrands and gives advice for marketers wanting to make the most of this changing media.

Newsbrands are enjoying a rising readership, as people access them across different devices - but this creates a planning challenge too, as advertisers need to consider these different touchpoints.

Newsbrands offer a great deal of flexibility across online and print versions, as ads can be bought as late as a day in advance, and can be sequenced across the paper or over days.

Assumptions of newsbrands are being challenged constantly, as audiences change, with most readers having a repertoire of newsbrands rather than loyalty to one, and newsbrands build partnerships with advertisers in new native formats.

Looking ahead is difficult in this rapidly changing media, but partnerships and collaboration are likely to continue, more data will become available as publishers grow their digital offering, and programmatic trading will grow in importance.

3

Understanding Out of Home Audiences

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Andrew Green, Warc Best Practice, January 2015

This article explores the different ways out of home media can be used as part of the marketing mix, and explains how digital is improving its effectiveness and changing how it can be used. View Summary

This article explores the different ways out of home media can be used as part of the marketing mix, and explains how digital is improving its effectiveness and changing how it can be used.

More than $38bn will be spent on out of home advertising worldwide in 2015 - about 7% of total adspend - and around a quarter of this will be digital out of home.

As well as roadside panels and public transport networks, out of home encompasses advertising on beer mats, sandwich boards, litter bins, bus shelters, supermarket trolleys and more.

Digital technology allows electronic sites to be updated or changed, creating opportunity for advertising targeted by time and expected audience.

Measurement continues to be difficult for out of home - both estimating audiences and then understanding impact - but technology is helping with this too, and new methods are becoming available.

4

Media Planning Toolkit: Planning TV

Includes video content

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Tony Regan, Warc Best Practice, January 2015

This article explains how TV has changed - and continues to change - maintaining a prime position in advertisers' media planning despite gloomy predictions. View Summary

This article explains how TV has changed - and continues to change - maintaining a prime position in advertisers' media planning despite gloomy predictions.

Healthy live TV viewing figures mask big changes in viewing habits as mobile devices extend viewing to times and places TV previously did not reach.

Planning needs to decide how TV will work with other paid media, how it will drive owned media and how elements of live and on-demand spots will work together.

This should involve reconsidering some received wisdoms about TV including response TV, and taking into account the mindsets of viewers.

Looking to the future, planners need to watch how programmatic advertising is developing for TV, and how smart TVs and ad-free subscription services continue to change behaviour.

5

Media Planning Toolkit: Planning for mobile

Includes video content

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Tony Regan, Warc Best Practice, December 2014, pp. 43-45

This article sets out the key issues in planning for mobile, and provides guidance for incorporating mobile into integrated communications plans. View Summary

This article sets out the key issues in planning for mobile, and provides guidance for incorporating mobile into integrated communications plans.

Mobile adspend is growing rapidly, with social media a particular area of focus, and this trend is expected to continue as mobile devices become central to modern life.

To make the most of this channel, planners need to understand how mobile devices are used, including different patterns and contexts - they aren't just used 'on the go'.

Part of this challenges is helping users move across devices seamlessly: people often start a search on mobile and move to desktop, and single logins should make this easier.

This article suggests that market segmentation is as much about how you do as what you do with it, and offers guidance for effectively segmenting a market - and embedding the focus on a segment across the business. View Summary

This article suggests that market segmentation is as much about how you do as what you do with it, and offers guidance for effectively segmenting a market - and embedding the focus on a segment across the business.

Segmentation has several benefits: sales generated by more closely meeting consumer needs, more efficient advertising and a closer focus on consumer needs.

The main phases of segmentation are: starting with analysing different potential segmentation schemes, executing the chosen scheme across the organisation, integrating segmentation into the organisation's structure.

Care should be taken to bring the segment to life, not just relying on demographic characteristics but developing cultural insights to really understand the segment.

Market segmentation should not be treated as just a research exercise, but used as an organisational capability to resolve marketing and strategic decisions.

7

Media Planning Toolkit: Insights from social and search

Includes video content

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Tony Regan, Warc Best Practice, October 2014

This best practice guide covers search and social data, which are increasingly being used to drive insights for communications planning across channels. View Summary

This best practice guide covers search and social data, which are increasingly being used to drive insights for communications planning across channels.

There is a world of difference between people's motivations when using search tools and social media, with search being a private sphere of expressing intent, and social being a more open environment of interaction with others.

Social research is best seen as an opportunity to listen in on people's candid conversations; use tools to pick up keywords and hashtags, take a sample of posts and consider the motivations of your audience.

Search data can reveal what people want or need, and also shows when they search, and common terms used along the purchase path and within categories.

Insights from both approaches can be much more readily generated when data sources are combined, typically in dashboards and visualisation software.

8

Understanding magazine audiences

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Andrew Green, Warc Best Practice, September 2014

This article summarises the best ways to use magazines as an advertising channel, including measurement and future developments. View Summary

This article summarises the best ways to use magazines as an advertising channel, including measurement and future developments.

Magazine adspend peaked in 2007 and has declined steadily since then - it is now forecast to account for 7.4% of major media adspend globally.

However, this remains an important channel as the market is highly segmented, allowing for targeting of specific interest groups.

Further strengths include high levels of audience engagement, potential for placement in highly relevant editorial environments and non-intrusive ads.

Publishers and advertisers need to prepare for the multi-platform future, as more people read digital versions of magazines.

9

Media Planning Toolkit: Planning for real-time

Includes video content

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Tony Reagan, Warc Best Practice, September 2014, pp. 14-16

This article provides guidelines for planning in real-time, in order to create a state of readiness that allows for 'planned spontaneity'. View Summary

This article provides guidelines for planning in real-time, in order to create a state of readiness that allows for 'planned spontaneity'.

The drivers of real-time marketing have accelerated: smartphone and tablet penetration, flows of real-time data and programmatic ad technology have all grown.

The best in class example of real-time is still Oreo's 2013 Super Bowl tweet, made possible by the command centre with various teams prepared to respond to unexpected events - like the power-cut.

Other examples include planned campaigns executed at a key moment based on real-time data, content created to be released with certain outcomes (such as a particular sports winner) and using social data to add value to live events.

Agreeing mandates for social media teams ahead of time also allows them to respond to announcements and interact with other users, including celebrities.

10

Understanding Internet Audiences

Includes video content

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Andrew Green, Warc Best Practice, July 2014

This article sets out how internet ad views are measured, how they could be measured in the future, and how it is challenged by changing user habits. View Summary

This article sets out how internet ad views are measured, how they could be measured in the future, and how it is challenged by changing user habits.

Internet use continues to grow and use of different devices, including smartphones and tablets, present new challenges for measuring ad effectiveness.

Ads can be targeted, are cost efficient and gain mass coverage, but may also remain unseen, be subject to click fraud or stimulate consumer concerns around privacy.

There are a variety of ways of measuring ad views but this needs to move further towards user-centric measuring to properly understand effectiveness.

11

Media Planning Toolkit: Digital strategy

Includes video content

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Tony Regan, Warc Best Practice, July/August 2014, pp. 38-40

This article provides guidelines for developing digital strategy within agencies, and the business opportunities this unlocks. View Summary

This article provides guidelines for developing digital strategy within agencies, and the business opportunities this unlocks.

At its best, digital strategy gives direction to the whole agency and exploits all facets of the digital ecosystem alongside offline channels.

Digital strategists benefit from hands on experience with more than just an intellectual understanding of platforms and practicalities: they need to be able to explain how things work to clients.

They should be channel agnostic, with an evidence-based rationale for activity and an audience-first approach.

Digital strategy can lose value when it over-claims, proposes 'cool' stuff that is ultimately irrelevant, is involved too late or isn't integrated with other channels.

Digital strategy may become less important as 'digital' becomes more familiar and integrated into agency structures, but the complexity of the field may continue to drive demand.

This article identifies the opportunities for advertisers and brands provided by Facebook mobile advertising products.

Facebook allows targeting to highly granular audiences including by mobile operating system and model, demographics, page likes and proprietary data such as existing customers or website visitors.

Mobile app ads allow companies to link directly to apps in the Apple App or Google Play store, and once installed deep link to in-app content, driving engagement and conversion.

Facebook also offers mobile optimised News Feed ads and auto-play video ads, both of which have built on learning about user behaviour to increase click through rates.

When planning Facebook ad campaigns it is important to consider context (highly personal), why people use mobile devices and make the call-to-action simple.

13

Media Planning Toolkit: Developing insight for comms planning

Includes video content

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Tony Regan, Warc Best Practice, June 2014, pp. 47-49

This article from the Admap Media Planning Toolkit discusses the importance of insight in a world of big data and provides guidelines for developing insight capability. View Summary

This article from the Admap Media Planning Toolkit discusses the importance of insight in a world of big data and provides guidelines for developing insight capability. Large amounts of data make it easier to become lost, and so a shared responsibility for insight to cut through the noise is important. Insight requires qualitative input, not just quantitative data, a multidisciplinary team, and the prioritisation of research sources. As a wider team of people become involved in developing insight, methodology must be carefully monitored to ensure it is sound.

14

Understanding Radio Audiences

Includes video content

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Andrew Green, Warc Best Practice, May 2014

This article summarises how to best use radio as an advertising channel. Around US$36 billion will be spent on radio advertising in 2014 - about 6.7% of major media adspend globally. View Summary

This article summarises how to best use radio as an advertising channel. Around US$36 billion will be spent on radio advertising in 2014 - about 6.7% of major media adspend globally. This share has never exceeded its high of 8.9% in 1999 and is predicted to see further gentle erosion over the coming years. Despite a perception as a background medium, it has several strengths as an advertising medium, studies contend that radio's impact disadvantage is in fact relatively small, especially when set against its far greater cost advantages. Like all papers in the Warc Best Practice series, it includes a list of references for further reading on Warc.com and elsewhere.

This article describes nine challenges that media planners must address when planning communications. These are: the need to solve business problems rather than communications briefs; deciding which communications model to use; understanding the new consumer journey; creating useful strategy tools; working in multidisciplinary teams; using flexible structures and approaches; adapting to real-time planning; making the best of content marketing; and integrating big data into planning. Despite comms planning dating back to the pre-digital age, its fundamentals remain relevant.

16

Understanding Newspaper Audiences

Includes video content

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Andrew Green, Warc Best Practice, April 2014

This Warc Best Practice paper discusses measuring and understanding newspaper audiences. The discipline is struggling to keep up with fast-changing consumption patterns, with many preferring newspaper websites to the print products. View Summary

This Warc Best Practice paper discusses measuring and understanding newspaper audiences. The discipline is struggling to keep up with fast-changing consumption patterns, with many preferring newspaper websites to the print products. Newspaper circulations and adspend are also falling around the world. The paper looks into the strategic value of placing newspaper ads, overs an overview of how ad impressions are measured and points towards future multi-platform development in the sector.

17

Data integration

Includes video content

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Steve Wilcox, Warc Best Practice, April 2014, pp. 44-45

This article provides guidance on best practice when dealing with data integration. There is growing demand for data integration as the range of media channels continues to grow and fragment. View Summary

This article provides guidance on best practice when dealing with data integration. There is growing demand for data integration as the range of media channels continues to grow and fragment. Guiding principles include matching data by common demographics and then merging them to create a single record. Like any survey sampling, this is limited by the relevance of the demographic profiles used, and by sampling size, bias and error. Eight major data integration techniques are: demographic targeting, profile matching for targeting, profile matching for cross-media integration, profile matching using behaviour surrogates, segmentation analysis for profile matching, unconstrained data fusion, constrained data fusion and using hub surveys.

18

Understanding television audiences

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Andrew Green, Warc Best Practice, March 2014

This best practice article argues that television is the dominant mass medium in the minds of major marketers and consumers. View Summary

This best practice article argues that television is the dominant mass medium in the minds of major marketers and consumers. It has a 40% share of major media adspend globally, with more than $200 billion spent in 2013. Television therefore remains, for many marketers, the primary communications channel when launching a new brand or supporting an existing one. It offers impact through sound, pictures and motion, the ability to reach lots of people quickly, and 'talkability'. However, it can now be viewed on many other devices and in different places at any time, including on-demand. The issues covered include set-top boxes, peoplemeters, viewing contexts and interactive TV. Like all papers in the Warc Best Practice series, it includes a list of related articles and items for further reading.

19

Contextualisation for insight

Includes video content

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Saul Stetson, Warc Best Practice, February 2014, pp. 44-45

This article explains how data contextualisation can be used to better understand what online content people are engaging with, and how this relates to other categories. View Summary

This article explains how data contextualisation can be used to better understand what online content people are engaging with, and how this relates to other categories. The quality of the technology that categorises pages is of prime importance in assigning pages correctly. This categorisation enables marketers to better understand customers, what they're interested in, and how to access them. As with other kinds of data, human interpretation is important in making sense of what the technology is uncovering.

20

Mapping the consumer journey

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Toni Keskinen, Warc Best Practice, January 2014, pp. 42-45

This article discusses the difficulties in mapping the consumer journey and offers guidelines for developing research in this area. View Summary

This article discusses the difficulties in mapping the consumer journey and offers guidelines for developing research in this area. Self reported behaviour or forcing consumers to choose a favourite brand in a survey are not reliable indicators of future behaviours. Instead, competing brands should be mapped with proper recognition of where your brand sits. In-depth interviews with people who have recently bought the brand can yield interesting information about consumer journeys, with three possible types of consumer identified: journey-driven people, destination-driven people, and slow movers. The importance of recommendation and research in a consumer journey is also considered.

21

Search engine optimisation

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Tim Vickery, Warc Best Practice, December 2013, pp. 44-45

This article is a guide to choosing a partner for marketers who wish to develop a search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy. View Summary

This article is a guide to choosing a partner for marketers who wish to develop a search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy. Companies should avoid SEO agencies that offer a canned strategy, instead selecting those that offer a bespoke service. Before beginning, success should be defined, including traffic and conversion-rate: creating a good user experience, including on mobile, will help to achieve this. It is important for someone to understand SEO reporting techniques to ensure results are properly quantified. Progress in SEO may be slow and take several engagements, so patience and realistic expectations are necessary. Finally, in the world of SEO, budget does dictate probability of success.

22

Brand positioning

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Nick Liddell, Warc Best Practice, November 2013, pp. 38-40

This article discusses the common pitfalls found in brand positioning, arguing that in order to be effective brand positioning should have a strong message that some people love, and some people dislike or even hate. View Summary

This article discusses the common pitfalls found in brand positioning, arguing that in order to be effective brand positioning should have a strong message that some people love, and some people dislike or even hate. The five common pitfalls in brand positioning are: that the difference between brand strategy and brand positioning is not clear, that brands focus resources on strategy at the expense of positioning, and that marketers are too concerned with the present rather than the future. The article also criticises the tendency of marketers to design for the 'average' and the tendency for brand positioning to be approached as an intellectual problem rather than a practical exercise. Lessons for positioning a brand are also shared, including starting with a clear definition, generating foresight, emphasising 'why' and 'how' over 'what', inviting interpretation of the brand, and following the vision through into small details.

Focussing on the UK this article discusses digital media planning and gives tips for developing a successful digital campaign. The article argues that understanding how the campaign is intended to drive sales, what the campaign objectives are, and having reliable ways of measuring success are important. It is also key that clients understand how digital activity relates to the wider campaign. The article cautions that using digital media requires the ability to respond quickly to unexpected consumer behaviour, and to confront any negativity towards the brand.

This best practice paper outlines five tactics that marketers of alcoholic drinks can employ to differentiate themselves in market and achieve a premium price positioning. View Summary

This best practice paper outlines five tactics that marketers of alcoholic drinks can employ to differentiate themselves in market and achieve a premium price positioning. These include the use of: trendy ingredients; celebrity endorsement; engagement via events and social media; stylish packaging; and exclusivity.

25

B2B customer experience

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Bruce Temkin, Warc Best Practice, June 2013, pp. 52-53

This paper argues that most business-to-business companies need to master the basics of customer experience (CX) management. View Summary

This paper argues that most business-to-business companies need to master the basics of customer experience (CX) management. As a result of interviews with executives at 28 companies, three key best practices in customer experience are described. The paper argues that in order to build stronger ties with clients, B2B firms must develop a client-centric model of account management (examples of this new approach are described). Investment in customer experience is key to building more loyal and long-lasting business relationships.